To be justified means to be declared righteous.

That is to say, God looks at me and says, well, the fact is you're not righteous. But I impute to you the righteousness of Christ. And therefore, clothing you, as it were, as Isaiah puts it, in the robe of righteousness, I now see you as righteous because your unrighteousness is covered by Christ. That's a declaration. That's what justification means.

Welcome to Grace to you with the Bible teaching of John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson.

Even the most seasoned Christians, and certainly certainly new believers will come across Bible questions that they don't know how to answer. Maybe it's a question like,

how should I confront someone in sin? Or maybe it's about world events and whether the Bible has

anything to say about them. Well, today on Grace to you, you'll hear

John MacArthur answer some challenging questions from his local congregation, maybe one or two

questions that you have had. So follow along now as the Q&A session begins.

Paul says it's better to depart and be with Christ, and Jesus told the people on the cross,

today you will be with me in paradise. When we depart from this earth, I know we're not

given the new body right away, but are we in heaven? Then, when we get to heaven, there are those that are in heaven,

do they know what's taking place here on earth? Now, if the answer is no...

What? In Revelation 6, it says, and when he broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar of the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God

and because of the testimony which they had maintained. And they cried with a loud voice,

how long, O Lord, holy and true, will thou refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth.

Okay.

If they are not, well, just, if you can just...

I got you.

First of all, the first question that you asked is when we depart, do we go immediately to

heaven?

And I think the answer scripture gives is yes. I think it's clear

from perhaps three passages. One of them would be Philippians, chapter one, where he says in

...